From Berklee Valencia to Honor of Kings: Obadiah Brown-Beach MM ’14 on Scoring for TV and Video Games

From an early age, Obadiah Brown-Beach MM '14 was captivated by the power of music, collecting film scores like the Star Wars trilogy and The Lord of the Rings long before he ever imagined composing his own. Today, Brown-Beach works as a senior composer at Hexany Audio in Los Angeles. With music featured on popular television shows throughout the US and China, and on the mobile game market, he’s been nominated three times for Best Song/Score for a Mobile Video Game at The Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA). In 2019, he won a gold medal at the Global Music Awards for his work on the world’s most-played mobile game, Honor of Kings.

Brown-Beach’s musical journey began with playing in bands and composing for friends’ video game projects, but it wasn’t until later that he realized making music a career was actually possible. 

“I had just never really considered that you could try to do this for a living,” he admits. 

However, attending Berklee Valencia's master’s program in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games was the first step he took toward transforming his vision into a full-time career. As he puts it, the program threw him “right into the deep water,” with hands-on assignments that required him to score scenes, orchestrate music, conduct, and mix recordings. “Berklee’s master’s program was perfect because that’s still applicable to everything that I’m doing constantly at my regular job now. So I think that experience was absolutely perfect in terms of getting me ready in that regard,” he said.

After graduating from Berklee, his early projects were primarily TV-based, working alongside a TV composer, but his diverse talents quickly led him to compose music for mobile games as well. His career took a significant step forward when he began working as a contractor for Bear McCreary’s Emmy-winning company Sparks & Shadows, where he contributed to high-profile projects. Additionally, his role at NEM Studios further solidified his reputation as a composer capable of creating both original scores and adaptive music for video games, making him a versatile and in-demand talent in the industry.

His work has since been featured in major mobile games, television series, and interactive media. He was ranked as a top 10 finalist in the 2015 Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Competition for his music for the animated short, Flip. He also composed the original score and created sound for Shovelware Games, a two-time winner of the Pocket Gamer Connects Big Indie Pitch Award, for the two mobile games Squeelings and Zombie Match Defense.

At Hexany Audio, Brown-Beach’s workdays are different from those of an average composer. His schedule is structured within office hours, with projects assigned, client feedback reviewed, and the day’s priorities set before he disappears into his workspace to start plugging away. From there, it’s a deep dive into composition, scoring new tracks, refining existing ones, or building fully mixed demos to send off for approval. Some days bring remote recording sessions, where he oversees solo musicians or string ensembles, ensuring each take is fine-tuned through editing and mixing. Other times, he’s crafting lyrics and refining vocal demos through pitch-shifting.

Reflecting on his achievements, Brown-Beach’s definition of success has evolved. As a senior composer, he now places greater value on the creative fulfillment and relationships that come with his work. Success, for him, is no longer just about the projects he takes on, but about feeling deeply connected to them, whether emotionally, artistically, or through meaningful collaboration. 

“Success today is a lot more meaningful when you have more meaningful relationships with the people you’re collaborating with. I think focusing on the quality of projects and the quality of people you’re working with and the quality of relationships you have with them, that feels more like success to me in this chapter than it did previously,” he said.

Brown-Beach is currently working on a long-form game, a project that has allowed him to explore different sounds and establish distinct themes for various areas within a larger, more immersive world. In parallel, he is composing a new character theme for the hit game Honor of Kings for a specific character, a challenge that has given him the freedom to experiment with sound design, blending orchestral and traditional Chinese instruments with electronic elements through techniques like distortion, stuttering, and audio manipulation. Beyond these projects, he is also involved in music for Arknights and Wuthering Waves, two anime-based games that have been allowing him to engage in more songwriting, bringing him back to his musical roots.